(PDF) A Persian Origin of the Arabic Aristotle? The Debate on the Circumstantial Evidence of the Manteq Revisited

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A Persian Origin of the Arabic Aristotle? The Debate on the Circumstantial Evidence of the Manteq Revisited
Erik Hermans
2018, Journal of Persianate Studies
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Abstract
The oldest Arabic translation of any Greek text is an eighth-century paraphrase of the first half of Aristotle's Organon, known as the Manteq. This text has been ascribed to Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ, the Persian administrator, author, and translator. Although the source text of the Manteq has not survived, the ascription to Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ—who knew neither Greek nor Syriac—implies that it was written in Middle Persian. Modern scholars have often called the ascription to Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ into question. This article reassesses that debate and demonstrates that it has been motivated by scholarly skepticism towards the late antique Persian intellectual tradition as a conduit of Aristotelianism. Furthermore, this article argues that none of the available circumstantial evidence contradicts an Aristotelian tradition in Persian, but rather supports it.
Key takeaways
AI
Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ likely translated the Manteq from Middle Persian, not Greek or Syriac.
The Manteq is the oldest Arabic translation of Aristotelian texts, dating from the eighth century.
Scholarly skepticism towards Persian intellectual traditions has influenced the debate on the Manteq's origins.
Circumstantial evidence supports an Aristotelian tradition in Persian culture during the Sasanian period.
The translation movement in Baghdad favored Persian texts over Greek or Syriac sources in the eighth century.
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Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 72–88

brill.com/jps

A Persian Origin of the Arabic Aristotle? The
Debate on the Circumstantial Evidence of the
Manteq Revisited
Erik Hermans
Independent Scholar
[email protected]
Abstract

The oldest Arabic translation of any Greek text is an eighth-century paraphrase of the
first half of Aristotle’s Organon, known as the Manteq. This text has been ascribed to
Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ, the Persian administrator, author, and translator. Although the source
text of the Manteq has not survived, the ascription to Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ—who knew nei-
ther Greek nor Syriac—implies that it was written in Middle Persian. Modern scholars
have often called the ascription to Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ into question. This article reassesses
that debate and demonstrates that it has been motivated by scholarly skepticism to-
wards the late antique Persian intellectual tradition as a conduit of Aristotelianism.
Furthermore, this article argues that none of the available circumstantial evidence
contradicts an Aristotelian tradition in Persian, but rather supports it.

Keywords

Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ – Aristotle – Manteq – Organon – Middle Persian – Greco-Arabic –
translation movement – Abbasid Empire

The earliest phase of the Greco-Arabic translation movement leaves many
questions unanswered. Scholarship of the last several decades has shown
that the first Arabic translations of ancient texts in Abbasid Baghdad were

* I would like to thank Robert Hoyland and István Kristó-Nagy for their insightful comments
on earlier versions of this article.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/18747167-12341317

A Persian Origin of the Arabic Aristotle ? 73

connected to the politically motivated patronage of the first Abbasid caliph
Mansur in the middle of the eighth century.1 Nevertheless, the details of the
first hundred years of the translation movement, from approximately 750 to
850, remain relatively unknown to modern scholars. The main reason for this
obscurity is the fact that only a very small number of the earliest Arabic trans-
lations have survived, since these were superseded by the new translations
that were made from the middle of the ninth century onwards by Honeyn b.
Eshāq and his associates. One of the few exceptions to this rule is the first half
of the Organon of Aristotle, a small corpus of logical texts. The pre-Honeyn
transmission of this collection of ancient Greek texts can still be traced in ex-
tant works.2
The earliest Arabic version of the Organon is also the oldest Arabic transla-
tion of any Aristotelian text: the Manteq (ed. Dāneshpazhuh, 9–24). The origin
and context of the Manteq has been subject of a convoluted scholarly debate
ever since a manuscript of it was discovered in the early twentieth century, in
large part because the text is attributed to the Persian scholar Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ.
Here I will disentangle this debate and argue that circumstantial evidence
points to a Persian source text of the Manteq.

1 The Late Antique Diffusion of Aristotelian Logic

Probably as early as the codification of Aristotelian texts by Andronicus in the
first century bce, the six treatises that deal with dialectical topics—Categories,
On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics and Sophistical
Refutations—became the opening treatises in the standardized sequence of
the Corpus Aristotelicum (Griffin, 21–77). After Porphyry had breathed new life
into the study of these texts in the third century ce, they became collective-
ly known as the Organon, which included Porphyry’s own introduction, the
Isagoge (Solmson, 69–74). In the modern canon of classical literature, these
treatises are by no means the most popular ancient texts, not least because they
are—as all Aristotelian works—highly enigmatic and incoherent. In the peri-
od from 500 to 900 ce, however, the Organon found a wider audience than any

1  In particular, the arguments of Endress (418–23) and of Gutas (1998, 28–52) have be-
come foundational, replacing earlier narratives such as those of Walzer (7–42) and of
Rosenthal (14–18) who held that the translation movement did not start until the ninth
century.
2  Other examples of extant pre-Honeyn translations are those of Hippocrates’ Airs, Waters,
and Places and Aristotle’s zoological works. Mattock (73–99) lists these and discusses a pre-
Honeyn translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics’ book alpha elatton.

Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 72–88

74 Hermans

other non-Christian text or corpus written in antiquity. This audience was both
linguistically and geographically widespread. By the sixth century, the Isagoge
and the Categories were known throughout the Mediterranean world in Latin
(Asztalos, 367–407), Greek (Minio-Paluello, 63–74), Armenian (Cornwallis, i–
xxxviii) and Syriac (see below) and translations and paraphrases. By the ninth
century, this audience included latinophone intellectuals such as John Scottus
Eriugena (Marenbon, 116–34), Greek authors such as Photius (Bydén, 9–34)
and Arabic scholars such as Kendi (Rescher, 44–58). The Late Antique Eastern
Mediterranean transmission of the Organon that led to its Arabic translation
in the Abbasid period has received much scholarly attention as part of the
scholarly narrative that is known under the umbrella term “from Alexandria
to Baghdad” (Gutas 1999, 155–194). After the intensive study and lengthy com-
mentaries of the sixth century Alexandrians, it was the vibrant Greco-Syriac
intellectual climate of seventh- and eighth-century Palestine and Syria that
carried on the torch of the Late Antique instruction and study of Aristotelian
logic (Westerink, 325–48; Roueché, 61–76; Erismann, 269–287).
Before the year 800, the Categories, for instance, was translated into Syriac
three times and it was the primary subject of more than ten Syriac treatises
and commentaries (King, 19–22; Hugonnard-Roche 1987, 205–222; Hugonnard-
Roche 1991, 187–209). This Syriac transmission formed the backdrop of the
ninth-century Arabic translations of Honeyn b. Eshāq, who was himself a
Syriac-speaking Nestorian Christian. Honeyn translated the Categories, among
many other works, anew from Greek into Syriac. Afterwards, this new Syriac
translation was rendered into Arabic by his son Eshāq b. Honeyn (Georr, 319–
58). The transmission of the other texts of the Organon fit a similar picture
and were either translated directly from Greek into Arabic or via a Syriac in-
termediary. In general, the translators were predominantly Syriac-speaking
Nestorian Christian and it is fair to state that they were the vehicles of the
translation movement in Baghdad.3 It is therefore all the more surprising that
the first Aristotelian text ever to be translated into Arabic, the Manteq, is not
attributed to a Syriac-speaking or even a Greek-speaking intellectual, but to
the Persian scholar Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ.

3  Gutas (1998, 20–22) downplayed the extent to which ninth-century translators were indebted
to the Syriac tradition. For a rehabilitation of that role of the intelligentsia of the Nestorian
communities, see Tannous, 22–107.

Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 72–88

A Persian Origin of the Arabic Aristotle ? 75

2 Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ and His Persian Background

Since medieval biographers write that Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ was murdered in the
year 757 when he was only thirty-six years of age, scholars have deduced
that he was probably born in 720/721 ce.4 His father, Dāduya, worked in the
Omayyad administration as a tax collector (Kristó-Nagy 2013, 50; Sourdel, 308).
Mohammad ʿAbd-Allāh Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ was born in Fārs, the traditional heart-
land of the Persian world in what is now southern Iran. His family was prob-
ably part of the Persian aristocracy and his native language was Persian. His
religion was Manichæism, until he converted to Islam late in his life (Kristó-
Nagy, 2013, 51; Sourdel, 311). Dāduya probably had his son schooled privately in
Basra, in southern Iraq (Kristó-Nagy, 2013, 50; Sourdel, 308).
Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ followed in his father’s footsteps and took up a career in the
Omayyad administration. In the 740s, he was active as a bureaucrat in Shāpur,
Wāsit, and Kermān before returning to Basra (Arjomand, 16–18). In these tur-
bulent years, he remained loyal to the unraveling Omayyad state. However,
not long before the actual fall of the Omayyads in 750, he probably decided to
switch sides and joined the revolutionaries and the Abbasid family (ibid., 17–
18). In the early 750s, we find Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ in the highest circles of the new
Abbasid regime. He became the personal secretary of the governor of Basra,
ʿIsā b. ʿAli, and he was also the tutor of the sons of Soleymān b. ʿAli (Sourdel,
310; Arjomand, 17–18). Isā and Soleymān were the uncles of Mansur, who took
the caliphal throne in 754. A few years later, Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ became the victim
of a political intrigue in the Abbasid family, when Mansur suspected Ebn al-
Moqaffaʿ of being instrumental in the political ambitions of his uncles ʾIsā and
Soleymān. Mansur had Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ put to death in 757, when he was only
thirty-six years old.5
Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s career can be placed within the larger context of Persian
secretaries in the Abbasid caliphate.6 After the center of power had been moved
to Iraq in the middle of the eighth century, the new Abbasid regime drew on
the administrative expertise of Persian secretaries.7 These secretaries brought
their own intellectual heritage with them. In this context Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s
œuvre should be placed. A large part of his work consists of translations of

4  The most recent overviews of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s life and works is Kristó-Nagy 2013; see also
Arjomand; Sourdel; Gabrieli.
5  The circumstances of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s death are discussed in detail by Sourdel, 311–323;
Arjomand, 24–36.
6  For discussion of Persian secretaries in the Omayyad and Abbasid administrations, see
Arjomand, 12–16; Kristó-Nagy 2016, 54–80.
7  See Arjomand, 16.

Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 72–88

76 Hermans

Middle Persian texts into Arabic, the most famous of which are the collection
of Indian fables known under the name Kalila va-Demna and the now lost Book
of Kings, a chronicle of the rulers of pre-Islamic Iran.8 Whereas the ascription
of these famous works to Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ has in general not been called into
question, the inclusion of the Manteq in his œuvre has been a matter of schol-
arly controversy for the better part of a century.

3 The Scholarly Debate on the Source Language and Translator of the
Manteq

The Manteq purports to be a translation.9 Unfortunately, the source of that
translation is no longer extant. It is possible that there was only one source
text, which was translated in its entirety into Arabic, but, as Zimmerman (542)
has argued, the Manteq may also have been a compilation of multiple source
texts. Either way, the absence of the source text has led to a debate on the
language in which it was written. If the translator of the Manteq had remained
anonymous, then it would have been most plausible to assume that it had
been written in either Greek or Syriac. These were the two languages in which
Aristotelian logic had continuously been studied during the sixth, seventh,
and eighth centuries. Moreover, the Manteq follows an established custom
in the Syriac tradition of ending the discussion of the Organon after parap-
graph i.7 of the Prior Analytics (Gutas 1999, 185). Without any known transla-
tor, there would not have been any reason to assume it was translated from
Middle Persian. Not a single Aristotelian text has survived in that language and
the Persian tradition is, consequently, never included in the standard narra-
tives of the transmission of Aristotelian thought from Alexandria to Baghdad.
However, the translator of the Manteq is not anonymous, but identified as Ebn
al-Moqaffaʿ. Persian secretaries such as Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ had no reason to learn
languages other than the official language of the caliphate, Arabic. In the
absence of evidence to the contrary, we must therefore assume that Ebn al-
Moqaffaʿ knew neither Greek nor Syriac. Consequently, he must have trans-
lated or compiled the Manteq from sources that were written in the only other
language he knew, Middle Persian. The supposed existence of such a Middle
Persian Aristotelian text means that Aristotelian thought was also known in

8  The best discussions of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s translations are Kristó-Nagy 2013, 81–107; Gabrieli,
197–247.
9  The most explicit evidence for this is found in the colophon of the Beirut manuscript. For a
discussion of that colophon, see Kraus, 10–11.

Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 72–88

A Persian Origin of the Arabic Aristotle ? 77

the Persian sphere and that the Middle Persian intellectual tradition should
be included in the “from Alexandria to Baghdad” narratives. It is this historical
implication that has formed the backdrop of the academic debate on ascrip-
tion of the Manteq to Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ.
In 1926, Giuseppe Furlani (205–213) published some preliminary notes on a
manuscript that he had found in the library of Saint Joseph University in Beirut.
This manuscript contains an Arabic paraphrase of the Isagoge of Porphyry,
and Aristotle’s Categories, On Interpretation, and the the Prior Analytics
until i.7. The text identifies Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ as its author. Scholars reacted
to this new discovery with disbelief. In 1932, Francesco Gabrieli published a
detailed overview of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s œuvre but dismissed the Aristotelian
text in a footnote on the first page, saying: “One may doubt the accuracy of
this information: nothing indicates that Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ was familiar with
Syriac, in which these versions or compendia of Greek philosophical texts
were generally composed” (idem, 2).10 Two years later, Kraus took Gabrieli’s
footnote up and developed a larger argument to refute the ascription to Ebn
al-Moqaffaʿ. The first point of Kraus’ argument is that, since the colophon of
the Beirut manuscript contains the name Mohammad b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. Moqaffaʿ
instead of Mohammad ʿAbd-Allāh b. Moqaffaʿ, the text must have been trans-
lated by Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s son (Kraus, 1–5). The Beirut manuscript, upon which
Kraus based his argument, dates from the early nineteenth century (MS 338,
dated 1240 AH). Although the manuscript is this recent, Kraus’ refutation of
the attribution to Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ on the basis of a small but significant dif-
ference in the name of this author could still have been plausible. However,
there is a strong base of secondary evidence in the medieval biographical tra-
dition in favor of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s authorship. The best example is a passage
in Sāʿed Andalosi’s Book of Nations, written in the eleventh century (Salem and
Kumar, 46):

The first scholar to become known for his study of logic, in this dynasty,
was ʿAbd-Allah Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ, the Persian orator and secretary of Abu
Jaʿfar Mansur. He translated Aristotle’s three books on logic, which are
the precise foundations of that science. They are the books of categories,
of interpretations, and of analytics. Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ mentioned that up to
this time only the first of these books had been translated. He also trans-
lated the introduction of the book of logic known as Isāghuji [Eisagoge]
written by Porphyry and Murqus of Tyre and others. His translation was
simple and accessible in style. He also translated the Indian book Kalila

10  All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.

Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 72–88

78 Hermans

va-Demna; he was the first to translate from the Persian language into the
Arabic language (idem, 49).

Two pieces of information in this account are unambiguous: that Ebn al-
Moqaffaʿ himself is the translator of the first half of the Organon and that he
translated it from Middle Persian into Arabic. This information is confirmed by
other biographers, such as Ebn al-Qefti (220), but those wrote in later centuries
and to a large extent rehash Sāʿed Andalosi’s passage. However, earlier authors
also confirmed that Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ was an Aristotelian translator. The tenth-
century bibliographer Ebn al-Nadim lists (248–9) Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ among those
who abridged the Categories and the On Interpretation. Even Jāhez (i, 38), who
was born in 776 and whose lifetime was therefore only decades removed from
Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s own, mentions him among those who translated Aristotle. It
is possible that these are not independent testimonies, but repetitions of the
same testimony. Furthermore, incorrect ascription of texts to famous literary
figures is not uncommon in medieval Arabic literature. Nevertheless, such con-
fusion is often found in biographical dictionaries that are centuries removed
from the individuals they describe. The fact that the earliest testimony of Ebn
al-Moqaffaʿ’s ascription dates from the generation right after him makes such
confusion less likely.
Kraus was aware of the medieval testimonia, but he asserted that this whole
tradition was based on a conflation of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ with his son. Even if
Kraus is right about this conflation, then it results in a correction that is of
minor consequence. There is almost nothing known about Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s
son other than he fact that he had one. However, Kraus uses this lack of in-
formation to increase the likelihood of his other and more fundamental ar-
gument: that the Manteq was translated from either Greek or Syriac, and not
from Middle Persian. Kraus’ implication is that, since we do not know anything
about Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ junior, it is not impossible that this individual did know
either Greek or Syriac. Having established on the basis of text internal evidence
that the Manteq is indeed a text from the very earliest stages of Arabic philoso-
phy, Kraus (9) uses only one Arabic word to prove that Middle Persian cannot
have been the source language: the Greek word for substance, ousia, has been
translated with the Semitic word ʿeyn and not with the Persian word jowhar.
After admitting that further study of the diction of the Manteq has to demon-
strate whether the source text was written in either Greek or Syriac, Kraus con-
cludes (13) that the choice of the translator not to use the word jowhar proves
the following: ‘The result of our investigation has a larger significance for the
history of science in Islam. It has become clear that Aristotelian works were
never translated from Persian into Arabic, as has often been claimed on the

Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 72–88

A Persian Origin of the Arabic Aristotle ? 79

basis of the misunderstood evidence on Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ.’ In other words, with
little evidence—the use of the Arabic letter ʿeyn in the text itself, in combi-
nation with a mistake in the name of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ in the colophon of a
nineteenth century manuscript—Kraus refuted the ascription that had prob-
lematic implications for him. If one reads between the lines of his argument,
then it becomes clear that Kraus’ article has a biased undertone and that skep-
ticism towards the Sasanian world as a conduit of Aristotelian logic is a leading
thread throughout his argument. Although this can never be proven, one won-
ders whether Kraus would have gone to the same lengths, if the Manteq had
been ascribed to a Syriac translator. In any case, only a few years after Kraus
wrote his article, Nallino disproved its major point. He demonstrated (1934,
133) the choice not to use jowhar was not a cultural or linguistic one, but can
instead be explained philosophically. Early Muslim theologians used jowhar
for a specific interpretation of substance, that of a singular atom, and ‘eyn for
composite substance, which is closer to what Aristotle talks about in his logical
texts. It is therefore surprising that subsequent scholars have often uncritically
referred to Kraus’ article.11
In 1978, the editio princeps of the text appeared. The editor, Mohammad
Dāneshpazhuh, was the first scholar to challenge Kraus’ argument. He did this
in the introduction of his edition (Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ, 1–84).12 Dāneshpazhuh
presented the different medieval testimonies to Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s activity as
an Aristotelian translator (ibid., 64–8). More importantly, he explained that his
edition was not just based on the nineteenth-century Beirut manuscript, but
on three other ones as well, which he had discovered himself.13 These manu-
scripts are older, the oldest one dating from the sixteenth century (Hamadan,
Madrasa-ye Garb 485, fols. 321–401, dated 1042 AH). All three of these man-
uscripts contain the name Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ and not of his son, according to
Dāneshpazhuh. One part of Kraus’ argument was therefore refuted: since we
know much more about Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ, it is implausible that he himself

11  Peters (11) mentions Kraus’s view as a reasonable option, as does Zimmermann (537).
Walzer (1970, 33) considered it ‘un de ses plus brilliant articles’ in “L’eveil de la philoso-
phie.” Madkour and Rescher (1964) neglect the Arabic text and Kraus’ article altogether,
but these omissions can probably be explained by the fact that the Arabic text had not
been edited yet.
12  The numbers refer to introduction in the book, which has a separate pagination in
Persian. I thank Mehrnoush Soroush for her assistance in reading the Persian introduc-
tion to this edition.
13  Hamadan, Madrasa-ye Garb 485, fols. 321–401, dated 1042 AH; Hyderabad, ʿĀsefiyya no.
179, dated 1045 AH; Mashhad, Āstān-e rezavi no. 1121, dated 1048 AH. See also Hein, 41–2.

Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 72–88

80 Hermans

would have translated from Syriac or Greek without any other indication of his
knowledge of either of these languages (ibid., 75–80).
The printed edition of the Arabic text did not cause any significant reac-
tion in the small world of Greco-Arabic scholarship. Although the earliest
Arabic translation of any Greek text had now been edited, Dāneshpazhuh’s
work received little scholarly attention, and the same with his arguments in
favor of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ as the translator.14 Nevertheless, in a brief discussion,
Josef van Ess made a significant contribution to this debate. Van Ess (ii, 27)
claimed that Dāneshpazhuh had misunderstood the manuscript evidence.
The name of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s son is found not only in the title of the Beirut
manuscript but also in the title of two earlier manuscripts and in the colophon
of all four known manuscripts. Only one manuscript contains unambiguously
the name of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ. This manuscript, however, is the oldest of the
four (Hamadan, Madrasa-ye Garb 4750, dated 1042 AH). Van Ess (ibid.) then
applies the lectio difficilior principle and argues that it is more logical to as-
sume that medieval scribes mistook the unknown son for his famous father
than vice versa. Consequently, without bias but with more evidence and a
more sophisticated argument, van Ess rehabilitates Kraus’ conclusion that not
Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s but his son was the author.
In conclusion, the state of the debate on the ascription of the Aristotelian
paraphrase is as follows. All medieval biographical testimonies and sections
of the manuscript tradition can be construed as evidence in favor of Ebn al-
Moqaffaʿ as the author, while other sections of the manuscript evidence point
to his son. The final conclusion depends on which part of the evidence one
favors. Consequently, recent scholarship presents the attribution as undecided
(Schöck, 119; Gutas 2010, 18; Gutas 2012, 72–3).15 Nevertheless, whether one ac-
cepts either father or son as the actual translator, a more fundamental aspect
of this text remains unresolved. The ultimate reason for early twentieth cen-
tury scholars such as Kraus to start the debate about the authenticity of this
text was its Persian origins. However, as I will argue below, whether Ebn al-
Moqaffaʿ or his son translated the text, circumstantial evidence shows that it
was translated from Middle Persian.

14  Hein (41–46) did acknowledge Dāneshpazhuh’s conclusions and the importance of
the Manteq. Tropeau (242–250) discussed some logical terms in the section on the On
Interpretation and did accept Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ as its author. Troupeau also states (243) that
Madkour, in a personal letter, also had accepted Dāneshpazhuh’s conclusions. Elamrani-
Jamal (510) accepted Dāneshpazhuh’s conclusions as well.
15  D’Ancona (202) refers to Dāneshpazhuh’s edition and to Kraus’ article, but not to van Ess.
Kristó-Nagy (2013, 175–9) follows Dāneshpazhuh and ascribes the text to Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ,
but does not refer to van Ess or to Gutas.

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A Persian Origin of the Arabic Aristotle ? 81

4 Middle Persian as the Source Language: The Circumstantial
Evidence

When Paul Kraus argued that Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ’s son was the translator, he did
not know anything about the identity of this son, other than the fact that Ebn
al-Nadim (118) states that Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ had one. However, later scholars dis-
covered that a passage in the work of Balādhori (iii, 268) provides more de-
tails on this eighth-century individual.16 Balādhori writes that Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ
junior was a secretary of Maʿn b. Zāʾeda, who was governor of Egypt under
Mansur. Moreover, in one of the editions of the Ansāb al-ashrāf, Balādhori
writes that Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ junior died before Maʿn b. Zāʾeda was transferred
to Yemen in the year 760. If that is true, then the terminus ante quem for Ebn al-
Moqaffaʿ junior’s death is 760, but this is doubtful since his father had passed
away at the age of 37 only a few years earlier. Even if his son lived beyond the
year 760, it is likely that he was no longer active as a writer by the beginning of
the ninth century. The conclusion is then that the translation was most likely
made during the second half of the eighth century. Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ junior fol-
lowed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps and pursued a bureaucratic
career in the administration of the caliphate. Moreover, since any evidence to
the contrary is lacking, the most logical assumption is that the son also knew
the same languages as his father, Arabic and Persian, and that if he made a
translation of the first half of the Aristotle’s Organon, he did so from Middle
Persian.
Since the translation must have been made in the second half of the eighth
century, there are more reasons to assume that this was done from Middle
Persian rather than from Greek. Already in the 1920s, Nallino (1922, 346–363)
argued that several Arabic translations of Greek texts must have had Middle
Persian intermediaries. Pingree (1989, 227–239) and Kunitzsch (268–282)
substantiated and expanded these claims and their research has resulted in
the following list of Greek texts that were translated from Middle Persian
into Arabic: Cassianus Bassus Scholasticus’ Geoponica, Dorotheus’ Carmen
Astrologicum, Vettius Valens’ Anthologiae, Teucer of Babylon’s Paranatellonta,
and Hermes Trismegistus’ de Stellis Beibeniis (van Bladel 2009, 27). These trans-
lations were most likely made in the second half of the eighth century, at a
time, it has been argued, when translations from Persian were more common
than translation from Syriac or Greek. In the case of astronomy, Pingree (1997,

16  The earliest reference to this passage in Balādhori that I can find is in Kennedy’s entry
on Maʿn b. Zāʾeda in the sixth volume (1991) of the second edition of the Encyclopædia of
Islam (345). See also van Ess, ii, 27; Arjomand, 35.

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82 Hermans

641) argued that until the reign of the caliph Ma‌ʾmun (r. 813–833) and what
he dubs the “Ptolemaicisation” of astronomical models, Persian and Indian
texts were more pervasive than Greek ones. Kunitzsch (274) argued that this
primacy of Persian texts applied to the first phase of the translation move-
ment in general. At the end of the twentieth century, Gutas (1998, 28–52) gave
such claims a solid context by convincingly arguing that the instigator of the
translation movement, Mansur, adopted Sasanian imperial ideologies, includ-
ing the patronage of translations of ancient texts, to appease a Persian fac-
tion of political subjects and supporters. Finally, van Bladel has supplemented
these earlier studies by showing that during the reigns of Mansur, Mahdi, and
Hārun Rashid, the ancient heritage of the lands that lay east and far east of
Baghdad were more on the intellectual radar than the western lands, resulting
in patronage of translations of Sanskrit and Middle Persian text rather Syriac
and Greek (van Bladel 2011, 81–6; van Bladel 2012, 42–3; van Bladel 2015, 260–4).
In short, the scholarly picture of the intellectual climate in Baghdad during
the second half of the eighth century in general and at the court of Mansur
in particular, points to an interest in translations from Middle Persian rather
than Greek. Therefore, this circumstantial evidence substantiates rather than
contradicts the initial assumption that Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ or his son must have
translated the paraphrase of Aristotle’s text from Middle Persian some time
during the second half of the eighth century.
One major problem remains and that is the fact that the source text of this
translation has not survived. If circumstantial evidence from the early Abbasid
period points to a lost Middle Persian original, then the next question is wheth-
er any evidence of the Sasanian intellectual tradition contradicts the possibil-
ity of the existence of Aristotelian logic in Middle Persian. Compared to the
evidence of the late antique and medieval intellectual traditions in Syriac,
Greek, and Arabic, the Middle Persian one is a black hole, since hardly any text
has survived. Nevertheless, there are a few minor indications that Greek logic
played a role in Middle Persian discourses.
The Dēnkard, a tenth-century Zoroastrian text written in Middle Persian,
mentions that the third-century Sasanian shah Shāpur i (r. c. 240–c. 270) col-
lected Greek texts on logic (Gutas 1998, 36). In another passage of the Dēnkard
the Middle Persian word for ‘substance,’ tōhmag, is explained in a recognizably
Aristotelian way (Shaki, 289). This could mean that some Aristotelian logic was
known in the third century in Sasanian intellectual circles. More importantly,
in the middle of the sixth century, Khosrow i Anushirvān (r. 531–579) is men-
tioned in different sources as a shah who promoted Greek learning: Procopius
writes that he was interested in philosophical debates and in Agathias’ history
there is an often quoted passage which says that several philosophers were

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A Persian Origin of the Arabic Aristotle ? 83

hosted by Khosrow I for two years after Justinian had closed the Academy in
Athens (Dignas and Winter, 263–5; Izdebski, 203–4). Agathias’ account seems
somewhat less anecdotal in light of the fact that one of the intellectuals at the
court of Khosrow i, Paul the Persian, dedicated a treatise on Aristotelian logic
to this monarch (Gutas 1983, 231–67; Bruns, 28–53; Hugonnard-Roche 2011,
207–24). Until he converted to Zoroastrianism, Paul was a Nestorian Christian.
Nestorian intellectuals provide us with the clearest evidence of the presence
of Aristotelian logic in the Sasanian realm, since they are an integral part of
the Syriac intellectual sphere. In the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, Syriac-
speaking Christians could be found on either side of the contested border of
the Byzantine and the Sasanian Empire. Especially after 489, when the school
of Edessa was moved to Nisibis, which remained mostly under Sasanian rule,
Aristotelian logic and the texts of the Organon were taught and discussed in
the Sasanian world. Moreover, the works of Gabriel Qatraya demonstrate that
Syriac versions were studied in the Sassanian Empire around the beginning of
the seventh century (Brock, 163).
Consequently, if Syriac translations of Aristotelian logical texts were cir-
culating in the Sasanian world, it is possible that these texts were trans-
lated into the intellectual language of the empire, Middle Persian. In fact,
Paul the Persian’s works are an example of such Syriac-to-Middle Persian
cross-pollination. Two of Paul’s works have survived, the Introduction into
Logic and a commentary on Aristotle’s On Interpretation. Both texts have sur-
vived in Syriac, but one of the manuscripts says that the commentary on On
Interpretation was translated in the seventh century from Middle Persian into
Syriac. For this reason, scholars have speculated that the other text by Paul may
also have been composed in Middle Persian (Gutas 1983, 239). Bruns (36–7) has
argued that such conjectures are confirmed by clues within the text, stating
for instance: “Paul’s diction is not only in the dedicatory part Persian in every
sense of the word, but his learned discussions of the univocal vs. equivocal
use of the terms ‘son’ and ‘fire’ must have had an Iranian source text, since in
Syrian every pun has been lost.” This means that two Aristotelian logical texts
circulated in Middle Persian in the sixth century. Considering the fact that in
the Greek and Syriac tradition the first four texts of the Organon were studied
as a whole, it is not unlikely that the other three texts were also available in
Middle Persian. In short, the presence of Aristotelian logic in Middle Persian
intellectual discourses is plausible. Although the evidence of Paul the Persian
does not prove that Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ, who lived 150 years later, used a Middle
Persian version of the Organon, it does substantiate such a claim.
Nevertheless, internal evidence could still turn the final verdict around.
A thorough linguistic analysis of the Arabic text could, if unambiguous

Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 72–88

84 Hermans

Persianisms are detected, corroborate the circumstantial evidence, or, if un-
ambiguous Grecisms or Syriacisms are detected, refute it.17 In conclusion, all
the circumstantial evidence points to the fact that the text was translated from
Middle Persian into Arabic: its translator was either Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ or his son,
who were both Persian secretaries; consequently, it was translated probably
before 760, at a time when translations from Middle Persian were more com-
mon than from Syriac or Greek; and, subsidiarily, an Aristotelian logical tra-
dition in Middle Persian is at least a possibility. Although, almost a century
ago, the scholarly debate on the circumstances of this Arabic translation was
instigated by a scholarly reluctance to accept Middle Persian as the source lan-
guage, the circumstantial evidence that has since been accumulated strength-
ens that very possibility. This conclusion strongly suggests that the Sassanian
realm must be added to the already impressive list of Late Antique cultures
across which Aristotelian logic diffused.

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R. Walzer, “New Light on the Arabic Translations of Aristotle,” Oriens 6.1 (1953),
pp. 91–142.
L. Westerink, “The Alexandrian Commentators and the Introductions to their
Commentaries,” in R. Sorabji, ed., Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators
and their Influence, Ithaca, 1990, pp. 325–48.
F. Zimmermann, “Some Observations on al-Farabi and Logical Tradition,” in S. Stern,
A. Hourani, and V. Brown, eds., Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition: Essays
Presented by his Friends and Pupils to Richard Walzer on his Seventieth Birthday,
Columbia, 1972, pp. 517–546.

Journal of persianate studies 11 (2018) 72–88
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L. Westerink, "The Alexandrian Commentators and the Introductions to their Commentaries," in R. Sorabji, ed., Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators and their Influence, Ithaca, 1990, pp. 325-48.
F. Zimmermann, "Some Observations on al-Farabi and Logical Tradition," in S. Stern, A. Hourani, and V. Brown, eds., Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition: Essays Presented by his Friends and Pupils to Richard Walzer on his Seventieth Birthday, Columbia, 1972, pp. 517-546.
Erik Hermans
Villanova University, Adjunct
I am an intellectual historian and classical philologist working at the intersections of global history, classical reception studies, and the history of ideas over the last 1500 years. I was educated in the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, and the USA, and I have taught Classics and History at ten educational institutions in the Netherlands (2008–2009, 2018–2019) and the USA (2014–2018, 2019–present). I currently teach graduate seminars in Classical Studies at Villanova University and middle school Latin at Friends Select School in Philadelphia. Teaching across educational levels is central to my intellectual practice, shaping both my research questions and my commitment to intellectual formation (Bildung) within a global perspective that moves beyond national, civilizational, or disciplinary narratives.

I resist the prevailing hyperspecialization in the humanities and read, teach, and publish across fields that are often kept separate. My classes cover Greco-Roman thought and its reception, with a recurring focus on philosophy. In my research, I prefer a comparative approach and engage directly with primary texts in Latin, Greek, and Arabic, examining how classical ideas—ranging from logic and political theory to ethnography, historical causation, and satire—were inherited and debated in medieval and modern intellectual and institutional settings.

Alongside specialist articles, I am developing essayistic books on the presence of classical and medieval values in the modern world and on the ethical responsibility of the learned to sustain humanistic education as intellectual formation (Bildung), resisting both hyperspecialization and therapeutic or identity-based moralism: an urgency underscored by the current cultural, political, and ecological costs that follow from distorted historical judgment and an inability to think beyond the immediate. Finally, I am also completing Mappa Mundi Latini, a global Latin textbook drawing on ancient, medieval, and modern texts from multiple regions.

Ongoing Research Projects:

• Medieval Eyes and Classical Paradigms:
Making the Eurasian Steppe Intelligible in Ibn Faḍlān, Anna Komnene, and William of Rubruck

• Medieval Lives of Ancient Knowledge:
Autobiography and Intellectual Authority in Ibn Sīnā, al-Ghazālī, Psellos, Blemmydes, Abelard, and Guibert of Nogent

• From Classical Ethnography to Global Anthropology:
A comparison of Rubruck’s and Acosta’s uses of classical frameworks in Inner Asia and the Andes

• Explaining Antiquity:
Models of Historical Causation in Montesquieu, Gibbon, and Mommsen

Future Research Projects:

• Mocking Intellectual Pretension:
Satirical Critiques of Illegitimate Knowledge in Aristophanes, Juvenal, Lucian, al-Jāḥiẓ, and Alberti

• Rare Voices of Doubt Before Modernity:
Cicero, Sextus Empiricus, al-Maʿarrī, and the rejection of metaphysical origins

• Describing Timur Lenk:
A comparison of Ibn Khaldun’s and Laonikos Chalkokondyles’ representations of Tamerlane

• Classical Philology for Arabic Philosophy:
Reassessing Zenker and Wenrich on Arabic Aristotelianism

• Tracing Parallels in Carolingian and Abbasid Rhetoric:
Alcuin and al-Jāḥiẓ Debating Winter and Summer
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Review of Alwishah Hayes Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition
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John W. Watt, The Curriculum of Aristotelian Philosophy among the Syrians
The Learning Roads
Studia graeco-arabica 7 (2017), pp. 171- 192, 2017
Since many Syriac texts on secular subjects have not come down to us, an assessment of the philosophical culture of the Syrians, both in the pre-Abbasid and early Abbasid eras, should take into account not only the preserved philosophical writings, but also those known to have once existed from references in other Syriac or Arabic texts. Equally important to bear in mind is the fact that particularly in the pre-Abbasid era, many learned Syrians were able to read Greek and were not confined in their reading to those works which had been translated. Considered in this light, it becomes clear that Syriac interest in Aristotelian philosophy, at least on the part of an elite which in the seventh century appears to have been particularly drawn to the School established at the monastery of Qenneshre on the Euphrates, did not fundamentally differ, despite its Christian colouring, from the Neoplatonic School of Ammonius at Alexandria, and in particular envisaged Aristotelian philosophy as proceeding from logic through physics and mathematics to metaphysics. The Organon was studied at least up to the Sophistical Refutations, and there is evidence of some interest in mathematics, particularly astronomy. In the pre-Abbasid period, however, there is no sign of any engagement with the physical treatises of Aristotle, despite some interest in natural philosophy evident in the Hexaemeron of Jacob of Edessa. The most likely explanation for the divergent estimations of Aristotle as logician and natural philosopher is the rejection of his theory of the eternity of the world, already manifested in the reserve of some Christians at Alexandria to his Physics, and the rejection of the theory together with the support provided to the creation story of Genesis in the writings of John Philoponus, fragments of whose Contra Aristotelem and De Opificio mundi are extant in Syriac. In Abbasid Baghdad, Syrians and Christians writing in Arabic who wished to engage with Muslim philosophers could no longer confine their writing on natural philosophy within the framework of the biblical Hexaemeron, and Aristotle’s physical treatises again assumed great significance, without, however, Christians abandoning their rejection of the eternity of the world. The Metaphysics was regarded from the earliest days of Syriac Aristotelianism as the culmination and goal (telos) of Aristotelian philosophy, but while in the School of Alexandria the curriculum was completed by a pagan exposition of Plato, such as is evident in the Platonic Theology of Proclus, the pioneer of Syriac Aristotelianism, Sergius of Rešʿainā, fashioned a Christian version of the curriculum by replacing it with the biblical interpretation presented in the corpus of Pseudo-Dionysius.
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The Arabic Version of the Book Alpha Meizon of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and the Testimony of MS. Bibl. Apostolica Vaticana, Ott. Lat. 2048
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